


That Time I Brought Two Girls to One Party

by Kittywitch



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, F/M, Humor, Multi, manic moments of no consequence, soft serve ice cream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-15 18:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1315387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittywitch/pseuds/Kittywitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Rose arrive during a street fair on an Earth-like planet, having forgotten that lifetimes ago, the Doctor and Peri attended the exact same night. Matters are complicated when a local man tries to use nefarious means to seduce a reluctant woman, and accidentally drugs the Doctor and his companion. But which Doctor, and which companion?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Patchwork and Pinstripes

"Time travel's like visiting Paris. You can't just read the guidebook, you've got to throw yourself in, eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get change double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me?"-The Doctor, _Doctor Who_

  
_Chapter One:_ Patchwork and Pinstripes

    The air on Agoshotinai, the first planet in the Tossi system, was thick. It was thick with drums, with chimes and singing, with strange tunes played on instruments that resembled lyres but sounded more like wire-strung guitars. It was thick with the smell of fried food and sweets. It was thick with flying banners in brilliant, if in many cases dingy, colors. The population of the planet dressed a bit like they belonged at a renfair shaking tambourines and about to burst into a spirited rendition of "Raggle Taggle", but had about as much to do with Europe's first renaissance as they did with the Romani. All bright colours, scarves and headbands, striped hose, loose shirts, bodices with bared midriffs and picadills with bells on them. It was thick with the calls and boasts of street performers; fire-eaters, jugglers, dancers with brilliant silk scarves and blade-racing, an art particular to the planet where two or three gyroscopic tops would tilt to impossible angles to pass each other along a sword’s edge. And it was thick in that it was simply thick, humid and warm and sweaty, with a slightly higher oxygen content that didn’t really affect the humans and humanoids who lived there, though fires always seemed to burn larger and brighter. As it happened, brilliant jet of orange flame had just shot up from under a pot of hot oil, causing the traveler who had bent closer to look at it to leap back.  
                              
    “Doctor, why would you put your face there?”  
    The blond man straightened and gripped his lapels, the better to scowl down at his companion. Peri did her best to stare back up at him with the same expression.  
    “You’ll burn your face off. And you only just got that one.” She found that travelling the Doctor was a bit like watching a toddler: you spent at least half of your time chasing after him and hoping you could keep him from hurting himself. Of course, unlike a toddler, the rest of the time was spent with him rescuing her from the deadly clutches of something-or-other. On the one hand, the attention from these various megalomaniacs could be vaguely flattering, on the other hand it often seemed like it only happened because she was the only person around, or the one whose abduction would annoy the Doctor the most.  
    “I got it out in time, see?” he gestured to his head. “See? Not a curl scorched, dear girl. But I do appreciate your concern.” She frowned slightly, which was met with a smug little smile.  
    “Well,” she sighed, tucking her arm under his as they walked into the crowd. “On the bright side, it looks like you’ve finally found a place where you don’t stand out.” He smiled at her and led her between booths and revelers.  
    “Now we only have to see to your outfit.” He replied coolly. Suddenly, he raised his chin and looked over the crowd with extreme interest.  
    “I think I fancy an ice cream, Peri. Let’s find a vendor.”

 

    

    As it happened, there was an ice cream vendor, and quite nearby to the time travelers. His name was Maece, and he was in an argument with a man named Tebam.  
    “I don’t approve of this.”  
    “What’s there to approve of, Maece?” asked Tebam. "I’d still be asking her, she’d still have the opportunity to refuse. I’m just improving my chances a bit. What suitor wouldn’t use every method at his disposal to win the girl he fancied?”  
    “It’s my wares you’d be contaminating and she already said no.” said Maece firmly. “Besides, the effects of narco wear off in a few hours, and where would that leave you?”  
     “The trouble with Shiana is that she’s just a little… you know, posh. She needs her inhibitions tweaked bit.”  
    “She does not!” Maece protested. “It’s a horrid thing to do with someone and I won’t have it. I have half a mind to tell her about this psychotic idea of yours.”  
    “You wouldn’t care to cross me, Maece.” Said Tebam as threateningly as he could manage. Given that Maece was a head and a half taller than his the other man and broader across the shoulders, this was not particularly effective. Also, Tebam was a wretched actor. Maece frowned, clearly unimpressed, and shoved way past Tebam to meddle with the engine of his cart. The smaller man stumbled, nearly fell, and scowled after the cart owner. In Tebam’s opinion, the confection vendor was the only person on all of Agoshontai who needed a good dose of narco half as much as Shiana. He regarded the Maece as he slipped most of his torso under the engine, adjusting pipes and valves. It would be a quick fix, really. And as he was about to prove with Shiana, with people like this it was far better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Particularly when permission had already been denied. Tebam smiled to himself, then opened the top of the orange-cherry bin on the confection dispenser, and dumped a vial into the churning sunset-colored treat. He smiled to himself. That flavor was almost entirely empty and hadn’t been restocked, not being a popular choice. Maybe he couldn’t convince Shiana to come home with him at night, but he was confident he could convince her to try a different flavor of ice.  
    “I suppose you’re right, Maece.” Tebam announced theatrically. The confection seller removed his head from under his engine with an expression as if he could read the last thing the other man had said written in the air between them and he wanted a second look.  
    “I’m just going to try with her one more time. Drugged ice is underhanded and overcomplicated. I really ought to just lay my intentions bare before her and treat her to a normal confection like a normal suitor.”  
Maece sniffed disbelievingly. Tebam could get these ideas into his head from time to time, the idea of Shiana, for example; and even if he could convince himself of the purity of an idea, by the time he had acted on it he would have sullied it beyond recognition.  
    “If you laid your intentions towards Shiana bare in a public place like the market, you’d probably be arrested for indecency.”

    

    The engines of the time-ship ground to a halt, and in a moment’s time a spikey brown head had emerged from it.  
    “Here we are, then!” announced the Doctor, some three hundred years older than he was when investigating the fire and pleased as Punch. He sprang out of his ship and turned in place. He’d managed to park it in a nice, inconspicuous alley, suitable for hiding a time ship shaped like a police box; which was a real trick considering there were about two such alleys on the entire planet and the other one was only a few meters away.  
    Rose exited after him, taking the time to lock the door after her.  
    “Come on come on come on.” He pleaded, bouncing in place. “No one’s gonna see it. Let’s go. Please. Things to go, places to see.”  
    “What’s your sudden hurry? Is the planet going somewhere?”  
    “Hurry? Hurry? The hurry is that we’re on Agoshontini during the middle of the summer festival and we’re alive.” The Doctor leaned closer to his friend. “This is a marvelous place, Rose. You’re in for a real treat.”  
    “Oh, I hope so. I could really go for something.”  
    “Mm, me too.” He agreed. The timelord looped an arm around the young woman’s shoulders. “Let’s get something cold, I forgot that it’s like a furnace on the bottom level.” She reached up compulsively and took the hand on her shoulder in her own, walking out in no particular direction.


	2. Coat-Sharing and Dancing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctors and their companions get ice cream. Rose dances, Peri gets a slight chill.

Grinning like a child, the blond man turned in place, shielding his prize from the masses by holding out his elbows. This kept most people from getting close enough to damage his ice cream and convinced more than one passerby that he was mad. Which he was, but still. However, there was a petite human who had more experience in getting close when he was being fidgety than any native of the planet.

“What have you got?” she asked, wedging herself under an elbow.

“A divine ambrosia set upon this planet purely for the enjoyment of the masses.”

“It looks like ice cream.” Peri observed. The Doctor scowled.

“Well, you look like a time-lady, but it doesn’t make you a natural genius or functionally immortal.” He replied tersely. “This is to ice cream what I am to you.”

“So the ice cream is friends with it, but neither knows why?” Peri asked. He smiled and shook his head at her, starting off in no particular direction and happily lapping at his cone. The human looked around in confusion, then dashed after him.

“Where are you going now?”

“Whereever I care to. It’s a festival night and there’s plenty to see. Anyway, I have my ice now so what happens next is inconsequential.”

“What? You didn’t get me one?” Peri whined.

“Huh. Didn’t occur to me, I’m sorry. Would you like me to…?”

She pouted. Lots of things had been slipping his mind recently, but it was hard not to take it personally when she was one of them.

“No, I’ll just have some of yours.” She said matter-of-factly, punctuating her statement by diving forward and taking a nip off of the top of the cone.

“Oi!” the timelord protested, raising the cone up out of her reach.

“It’s only fair.” Peri pronounced firmly, licking her lips.

 

 

 

 

“Orange-cherry?” Rose asked with interest.

“I’ve always been fond of it. We-ell, when I can Agoshontinian ice, I tend to get this flavor. It’s not often I stop here, and it’s a bit of a cultural specialty of this planet, it’s what I get. If I can’t make up my mind, that is.” He tilted the cone towards her. “Try a lick?” he offered.

Obedient and more than a little curious, Rose obliged. She ran her tongue over her lips in thoughtful approval.

“Sort of a creamier soft-serve.” She mused.

“Melts at a higher heat, good for this climate.” He informed her. He wrapped his arm about her shoulders again, holding the cone somewhere between the level of her mouth and the level of his. The two of them started walking again, this time in the vague direction of a street performer. Rose turned her head slightly further than her neck wanted her to.

“Doctor, what’s that?”

“Oh, a fortune-teller!” he said with interest, taking a lick off the cone. “Nothing quite so fun as watching someone almost properly psychic trying to out why they think a thirty-five year old man’s been in twelve wars. And started two hundred and eight.”

“Not that, there was this brightly-colored thing, but it went behind the tent. I thought it might be a mummer.” He lowered the cone for her benefit, and she loosely cupped her hand around his, taking another lick as he continued.

“Probably was, more street performers than street on this planet. We’ll have a look a bit later.”

 

 

As it happens, it was not a mummer, and just as he ducked into the fortune-teller’s tent the younger version of himself made it into the street he had just exited, a whining Peri hot on his trail.

“Now stop that!” the Doctor protested, lifting the cone above his head.

“You agreed we could share it.” Peri whined, lifting her arms for all the good it did.

“Yes, but it’s my lick.” He said matter of factly, lowering it down to his face.

“You eat too slow, Doctor.” She protested. “See? It’s melting.”

“I’d eat it faster if I didn’t have to guard it from you.” He replied, taking his lick. Peri was right; it was melting and somewhat faster than he would have expected it to. Either it was a particularly warm night, the ice had gotten contaminated with something, or all this fussing about to secure his serving had wasted the confection’s precious shelf life, and he knew which one he suspected. Satisfied with his mouthful, he lowered the cone.

“See what you’ve done?” Peri tutted, “It’s melting all over your hands.”

Holding his hand in both of hers to direct the ice cream to her face, she put her mouth to the bedraggled confection. The Doctor jumped slightly, having been expecting several reactions to the mess which were not licking it off of his hand.

“Are you quite done, Peri?” he asked.

“It’s good ice cream.” She said sheepishly. The Doctor smiled. He reached forward, as he often had before, to tap her fondly on the nose, which due to the ice cream in his hand was less than usually successful.

“Doctor!” his companion whined, taking a step back from him.

“Sorry about that, Peri.” He said, holding the cone out of the way. “Consider the predicament rectified.” He leaned down and attempted to lick the offending confection off her face. Peri gave a small squawk of indignation and squirmed out of his grasp. Then, she wiped the ice from her nose and licked it from her fingers.

“It was my lick.” He protested.

“It’s my nose.”

“That didn’t stop you from eating off my hand, and that was much more than one lick!”

“Fine then, take the next lick!”

In response, he took a large bite through most of the cone. She’d already gotten the majority of the ice off it anyway.

“Ooh!” she made a curious growling noise and slipped the remainder of ice cream cone, as well as the fingers holding it, into her mouth. Delicately as he could manage, he removed his hand, giving up the ice cream as a loss now. As she made a face rather like a chipmunk with a mouthful of nuts, the idea of clapping his hands firmly to her cheeks and making her spew frothy cream all over the place crossed his mind, but he decided against it.

"Well, that's the ice done for. Come along then," He draped his arm around her shoulder and squeezed affectionately. The pair moved off through the crowd, pausing in front of booths selling items they would never have a use for; in many cases items with no apparent use at all; pantomimes halfway through the performance and in one particularly memorable case a musician playing something that vaguely resembled a mandolin but could not be heard over his own voice. His singing was unimpressive and bawdy, and he leaned towards Peri pulling suggestive faces that made her cling to the Doctor more closely. Her grip did not loosen when they passed him, in fact she wedged herself firmly under the Doctor’s arm, trying with limited success to slip under his jacket with him. He gazed at her curiously, but adjusted his grip to let her settle her body against his, tucking her head beneath his chin.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Aren't you simply boiling?”

“I think I ate that ice too fast.” She shivered.

“Well, whose fault is that?” he asked.

“Besides,” he added, wrapping the edges of his coat over her, “From this angle I don’t have to look at your coat.”

" 'Methink the lady doth protest too much.' " he quoted superciliously. "This isn't the first time you've tried to steal my jacket of my back. I quite fancy it's grown on you."

"Like a mold." she retorted. He raised his chin to look over the crowd, scanning the revelers for the next distraction or the clearest path. Peri mirrored this action, though whether this was to look over the crowd or keep the crown of her head in contact with his chin was lost upon him.

Directly in front of them, shouting and twirling couples gathered for a dance, as musicians tuned their instruments. Well, that could be quite fun but it would hardly do to start dancing just when he'd gotten comfortable. He gently turned to the right, adjusting their path to something equally distracting but less engaging. A fire eater had just begun his performance, and by the look of things he was going to light a set of already spinning poi by spitting flame at them.

 

 

 

At that precise moment, the second couple turned left, towards the dancers. A small, grubby boy who had been following them for two streets reached forward to slip his hand into the man’s pocket. Without looking down or pausing from eating, the skinny Doctor passed the ice to Rose, took the urchin’s wrist in his now-free hand, turned him about and left the child in an uninjured but very confused pile on the ground, and retrieved the ice cream. Rose was about to comment when the Doctor started talking.

"Oh, hello!" the Doctor grinned, nudging the young lady with an arm around his waist. Rose turned her head in the direction he had indicated.

"Looks like they're about to start dancing." she commented. She rose on her toes and took a bite of the cone with a loud crunch. The Doctor lowered his hand, letting her eat a bit more easily.

"Care to join in?" he asked.

"Do you think we should?" she asked, mouth full. He looked down at his companion, feigning an affronted air.

"Are you questioning my moves?"

"I don't know." Rose sniffed, attempting not to grin, "It's been a while, are you sure you haven't forgotten how?"

"Now hold on, I'm on a cycle and I'm not due to be clumsy quite yet." He took a step back and gestured grandly towards her. "Don't you want to enjoy it while I've still got it?"

"Got _what,_ Doctor?" she grinned, closing the space between them. "I'm only asking if you know _this_ dance. It looks a bit like that folk dancing old people and girls who never get dates buy those huge frocks for. You know, country dancing, that's it."

"Oh, now you’re questioning my knowledge of obscure cultures. That's rough."

"I'm questioning your ability to remember how while dragging someone with no idea what she's doing." she shrugged. He rounded on her and looked at her seriously.

"I'll not have you slandering yourself, Rose. You're brilliant and I don't need to drag you. And I know for a fact you can dance."

The Doctor offered Rose the last bite of cone, which she quickly nipped out of his fingers.

 

The timelord and his blonde companion clasped hands and ran into the forming crowd, guessing vaguely where they ought to be standing and only just making it into place before the music started.

Dancing, spinning and laughing; they broke apart and pulled close again, twirling and treading the dusty ground violently. Their feet and the sweeping edge of his coat raised a small, thin layer of powder that looked as if it desperately wanted to become a cloud, but couldn't quite manage it. Not that the couple, grinning fondly at each other as they danced needed anything so saccharine as a symbolic cloud to dance on, they were already being too sweet for the tastes of many of the watching revelers. With an impressive sweep, the Doctor swung Rose away and shrugged out of one shoulder of his coat. He pulled her close again and caught her in his free arm. Looking away from her for the first time since the dance began, he tossed the coat out towards the edge of the dancing area, making a note of where it landed.

Rose tilted her chin up at him, wearing an evil little smile like she was plotting how to make him pay for that dramatic flourish and the fact it barely involved her. She raised her arms and twirled in place, turning her back to her dance partner and pressing it into him. There was almost a pause, where the Doctor tilted his head down to where they could exchange a smirk. He grinned and spun her around and around again, her blond hair striking him in the face until she stumbled, laughing, into his chest.

 

The thick atmosphere caught in Rose's throat and made it hard to breathe. Unless of course, that was the fierceness of the dance or the Doctor's presence; the way she could feel his hearts pounding when he held her to his chest. He lifted Rose off the ground entirely, spinning merrily until she slid down his front like a thrown towel, her feet finally coming to ground again. Their hands, sweaty with the heat and exertion, grasped desperately at each other, lest they lose their counterbalance and fall back, thrown apart by sheer velocity.

 

Unnoticed by the travelers, the other dancers and the revelers who stood on the edge of the crowd to watch had slowed, in some cases even paused to watch them dance. They were unaware of this, given that their focus had shifted entirely onto each other. Which was just as well, as no one was impressed by their dancing, but confused as to what they were doing in the middle of a structured, traditional dance with a clearly no idea what they were doing. Which didn't stop them from throwing themselves into it whole-heartedly, dual-heartedly in his case, and enjoying every minute of it.


	3. Brickwork and Ozone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Peri become aware of the fact that they seem to have been dosed with some form of narcotic. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Rose remain blissfully unaware that the world does not revolve around how sweet they are on each other.

The first set of travellers moved to back along the more permanent structures, old stone buildings half covered with awnings and plastered over with yellowed and cracking adverts for events longs since past. The revelers were fewer but the air no fresher, and the sounds of dancing and cooking had dulled only slightly, muffled by passerby intent on their own discussions. Such as Peri and her Doctor, who were each accessing the other's state of mind.

"I am not 'acting funny', as you so delicately put it." the Doctor said hotly, "And I would remind you that you have commented, on many occasions, on so called 'funny' behaviour. Therefore, even if I was acting funny, then by your own testimony that would be perfectly normal. And I should think that my concerns about your behaviour would be a more pressing matter."

"Because you're a doctor?" Peri guessed. There was something faraway but dreadfully excited in her voice.

"Because your hand has been in my pocket for the last twelve minutes."

"How do you know it's been twelve minutes?"

"Why, because that's the pocket with my watch in it." he smiled dryly at his own wit. Obligingly, Peri removed the hand from his pocket and moved it back across her body then to its original side. The movement appeared to fascinate her, and that in turn fascinated him. The arc carried the hand all the way to the wall they walked beside, tracing the lines of mortar with her fingers. The stones were warm under their touch, smoothed by time and hundreds of similar people running their hands over the same stones. The Doctor watched her curiously, himself fascinated by her fascination. He raised his free hand to the wall, in effect turning both of them to face it and examine it more closely. And there was nothing surer to kill her attention in the wall than that. On the plus side, it did give her something else to focus on; and she then moved on to a similar examination of his hand. She ran her fingers up his and then walked her forefingers across his knuckles. He turned his head towards her, only more curious than he was before.

"I don't think you're quite yourself." he commented.

And she was not. Her eyes were strangely dilated, all gleaming and bright, her cheeks were flushed and, now that he was examining her closely, despite complaining of the cold her body temperature was higher than usual. And he considered himself an quite expert on the subject of Peri's body temperature; at very least when she decided to be on the inside of his coat. There was also the matter of the hands and the wall, of course, but he found the eyes and body temperature far more interesting. Also, judging by what he could feel of her pulse from the overlapping hands, her heartbeat was significantly elevated. Which, considering her sluggish movements, was unexpected.

This all meant something, and he was quite sure that he ought to be figuring it out; but frankly he was really enjoying observing the symptoms. The eyes and the pulse in particular. He thought nothing of being drawn to details.

 

But then, it occurred to him, if she was feeling poorly, he ought to do is find a nice quiet place for her to gather herself. Why the place he chose was a nearby alley may never be fully understood, but it may have had something to do with the difficulty in convincing her to move away from the wall. Or perhaps the large stone steps leading from the back door of the establishment resembled, to his mind, an examination table. It could have even been that it had the smallest midden pile of any of the nearby alleyways. However, it was far too narrow to house a TARDIS.

"Indeed, Peri; I am quite certain that you are under the effect of something. You're quite lucky I happen to be a doctor. I have mentioned that, haven't I?" He blinked several times. Some part of what he had just said didn't sound quite like him, but given both hands were now supporting his companion, he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Take care of me?" she asked vaguely. He gently leaned her against the wall with the intention of examining her eyes again, but once he had a good view of them, he once again became fascinated by the glossiness of the eye. There might have been a layer of tears as well as the dilation, but if there were they surely were not emotional as she seemed extremely happy at the moment, albeit in a dazed sort of way. It took him several moments to register that she'd even asked him a question.

"Hm? Oh, yes. That is the general idea." He toyed with the idea of mentioning to her that whatever was affecting her had also seemed to have contaminated him, but decided against it. No need to worry her. Besides, she was doing much better than he was; doubtless whatever had laid his companion to waste was not calibrated for a Gallifreyan constitution. For her part, Peri seemed extremely appreciative of the attention and set herself to expressing that. Which she did by pulling him down by the lapels of his coat and nearly stepping out of her shoes to get on tip-toe. The Doctor was utterly confused by the presence of a second tongue inside of his mouth, although he felt vaguely justified in that this action was an excellent example of just the sort of behaviour he had been describing.

 

 

 

His later regeneration was having a problem of a similar nature, though he was reacting to it differently. He had retrieved his coat but found it was far too hot to wear and slung it over his arm, that in turn resting on his own companion's hips. Hers was around his waist, and the other was in the process of being nudged aside so he could loosen his tie. Their faces were flushed and exuberant.

"This planet is brilliant!" the Doctor announced. "Absolutely top-notch."

"I know, everyone's so friendly!" Rose agreed, nodding. He leaned into her fondly, not breaking stride.

"What's that? Is that you being friendly?" she chuckled, leaning back. For a moment, they stumbled and laughed as both attempted to knock the other one ever with their shoulders. Rose dissolved entirely into giggles and forgot to push, causing the pair of them to stumble into the thick crowd, quite annoying a young man in a peasant shirt and nearly knocking into a merchant stall.

"Nutters." the boy grumbled.

"What are you _doing_?" she chuckled.

"Dunno. I honestly do not know. When do I _ever_ know what I'm doing, Rose?"

"I hope you do when you're off saving planets and ships."

"No, I just tell you that to make you lot feel better. It keeps the masses calm if they can believe the person saving them actually has a plan."

"Oh no, I've learned your secret!" Rose laughed, nearly bending over laughing, "You'll have to kill me!"

"Nope, I never kill. If I can help it." he added quickly. "I'm just gonna have to lock you up and make sure you never leave." His pace slowed and his face lost expression.

"Keep you locked up in my ship. Locked up tight and safe with me forever." he mused quietly.

"It's not a prison if the prisoner chooses to stay there."

"No Rose, it is. The cleverest prison of them all." he said softly. She reached up and stroked his head. She'd intended to stop at his temple, but didn't want to remove her hand and just let it slip from hair to sideburn to chin.

"Doctor, you alright?"

"Well, truth be told, I do feel a bit odd." he mused.

"Is there any place to get air on this planet? It is a bit thick here..." He turned his body fully towards her and grinned.

"Oh, you _are_ brilliant." Without either of them communicating the plan to the other, Rose and the Doctor switched their grips from the walking hold to the running hold.

"I actually wanted to show this to you." he shouted without glancing at her, running through the streets and crowds with the same pounding fierceness as the dancing. There were times Rose trailed after him, but for the most part she did her best to keep abreast of him. She failed to do so as they began to climb, scaffolding and fire escapes, leaping small gaps one after the other without breaking their grip. The air freshened and cooled as they moved up, but only slightly. But to the travellers who had been down on the ground level in the shops and smoke and noise, it was like visiting another world. The descending lamp lights danced beneath them like fireflies in the night, shrinking away to pinpricks. As they came to the final rooftop, the stars seemed closer than the city below.

 

This was clearly a hydroponics lab of some sort, small plants with little misters above them on endless rows of slatted tables. But all the sunlamps had been turned off. Rose started to asked why, then noticed the Doctor slipping his screwdriver back into his pocket. This was clearly what he'd wanted to show her. The air was still thick, still warm, still sultry; but now she could detect fat, heavy flowers wallowing in their own perfume. Not a rose, but something related. Something foreign, something descended from a rose. But that was silly. Why would they grow flowers in a hydroponics bay on a planet this densely populated, something edible would have been far more important; surely. She moved forward to examine a plant and discovered it was actually a flower. Maybe it would grow a fruit when the flower died?

 

"They sell them." the Doctor said, answering the question she hadn't voiced. "Down in the marketplace. A lot of the food is imported, but the flowers? They need to be grown fresh." Rose glanced up at him. He was staring at her with something close to reverence, and it surprised her. It was an expression she could understand if she was directing it at him, but that was different. He was the Doctor. She could love him, easily, but if he loved her back half as much she loved him; well, then there must be something completely brilliant about her.

 

He dropped his coat and turned in place. The condensation on the rooftop gleamed, reflecting the stars above him. It looked like he was standing alone in a field of black, reaching out to brush his fingers against the stars that surrounded him. Rose smiled. That was her Doctor. The lone figure standing protectively in front of the universe in general.

She walked out, across the gleaming, star-studded pavement and joined him, wrapping her arms around his waist and laying her head against his chest without comment. His hearts beat in her ear, and she closed her eyes. The Doctor lay his hands against her body and sighed contently. His arms found the places they favoured, the familiar curvature of her form, but did not break away as he knew they should.

 

She always said, "forever". She never seemed to realize that forever was an impossibility. At least for him. Eternity was his alone, and it didn't care if he wanted to share it or not. But she held unthinking to that beautiful, childish hope and he loved her for it.

He almost wished he could bundle her up like that, keep her for that forever she was so fond of; but he knew she'd hate it even if she didn't notice hating it. It was a question he was asked shortly after meeting her, and he had the same answer now as he did then. A slave is still a slave even if he doesn't know he's enslaved; and choosing her own prison wouldn't keep her from being a prisoner.

 

But there was something else, nagging in his mind behind the focus of the young lady in his arms. Something that made him, desperately, want to move her face off of his chest and kiss it. Not just brush his lips against hers but clamp his mouth over her own as if he were dying and that was the only way to save either of them. Or indeed, that he was dying and there was no saving either of them. It reminded him of a sensation he'd felt before. The last time he'd experienced it, he described it as "a twinge of cosmic angst". Or the twinge of a cosmic boner, one of the two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a rolling tide of "I can't believe I wrote that." Particularly the last line. Go home Peri. You are drunk.


	4. Drugs and Snogging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maece's plan comes to light, and the only people who were as of yet affected by the narco react to having been dosed. Meaning the Doctor and Peri make out drunkenly.

"Orange-cherry?" Shiana asked dubiously. Tebam nodded enthusiastically, taking her by the elbow and leading her towards Maece's ice booth. The young Agoshotinian lady was indeed quite pretty, wearing a tight bodice and a blouse with long fluttery sleeves. And clearly, she was a little uncomfortable with her situation but humoring Tebam. There was a place between pitying a man with no social graces whatsoever and telling him that if he made eye contact with her ever again, she would stop him from doing so by personally gouging out his eyes. That place was the home of Shiana and Tebam's rocky relationship. But, if he was going to make an attempt to be simple friends with her, she would be game. Tebam certainly needed all the friends he could get.

"It's brilliant, Shiana." Tebam insisted. "You're gonna love it. And it's my treat." The grip on her elbow tightened slightly, and she removed the hand but kept walking. The least she would get out of this was a free ice.

"Oi, Maece!" Tebam called as he reached the ice cart. Maece raised his head, retying his headband to try and keep his hair out of the food. Tebam leaned on the edge of the cart in an exaggerated fashion, tugging roguishly at his vest which might have been intended to make himself look more attractive but mostly looked awkward.

 

"Lovely night, innit?"

"Good for selling ice, I guess." Maece shrugged. "All hot and sticky. And the air's got that crackle to it; I think a storm might be rising."

"And how's my dearest friend doing these evening?"

"We're not friends." Maece said stoically.

"That as may be, but you still like me more than anyone else I know."

"Dear god," Maece said to Shiana. "He's trying to get you to pity him." The girl chuckled, causing Tebam to scowl. Not that it would mater much soon, but he couldn't help but feel a touch of jealousy for even innocent attention. Especially that garnered by conventional means, no means being more conventional than at Tebam's expense.

"I'm sorry, Tebam, I seriously doubt that you came here to discuss our relationship." Maece chuckled.

"I'm following your advice, actually. A cone of orange-cherry ice for my close friend Shiana." He smiled. "May we only grow closer."

"Strange, there's been quite a run on orange-cherry tonight." Maece commented, turning to the churning ice. Tebam turned white. Almost as if they could hear him blanche, both Shiana and Maece stopped what they were doing and stared at him.

 

"Tebam?" Shiana asked gravely. "What did you do?" Maece turned to his ice machines in horror, clutching at his head and shaking it in disbelief.

"Maece?" Shiana asked more urgently. "What did Tebam do?"

"He's contaminated my wares... he's contaminated... I sell that food, Tebam! What do you think would happen if some poor sot had had had more than one and overdosed?! I've seen it happen, I've seen people come back for three cones in one night!"

"Oh now really, Maece. Who comes back for another ice when they're feeling randy?"

"Don't you dare act like this is funny."

"What's happened?" Shiana asked.

"This-- this twat dumped a fat load of narco in my ice!"

"What?" Shiana gasped, rounding on Tebam.

"He asked for permission and when I said no, he did it anyway!" Maece exclaimed. "Nasty habit of his."

"You were going to _drug me?!"_ Shiana gaped.

"Not so much 'drug you' as try to win you again."

" _This is not how you pick up women!_ " Shiana shrieked.

"And who knows how many of my customers are narced up and shagging bookends because you can't get a sober girl to look at you."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, Maece. You’re overreacting."

"Twisted knickers is exactly what I'm worried about!" Maece shrieked, tearing at his hair.

"I don't think he's overreacting." Shiana commented.

"You have completely bollocksed-up my entire operation, Tebam." Maece growled.

"Now now, Maece..." Tebam said nervously. " 'Bollocksed' isn't even a word."

"It's a word now! Or perhaps I shouldn't say that. Maybe I shouldn't say you've bollocksed-up my shop but just that you've Tebamed it!" The ice-vendor turned away and tried to get a hold on himself. There was the worst-case scenario, and there was what actually happened. Barely anyone ever ate orange-cherry ice anyway, it was a bit rubbish. Maece ran his hands over his hair again, trying to calm himself.

"Alright. Alright. It was only the orange-cherry ice. Don't sell many of those..." he covered his eyes and rubbed them. "Uh... god, I've got to remember this, I've got to remember who I sold it to... who buys orange-cherry, no one buys orange-cherry, it should be easy to remember..." He dropped his hands and spoke to the empty air in front of him.

"There was an older fellow, bit of an oddball, and he had a young lady with him. I think they were going to split it."

"So we just find the strange old man snogging a young lady and tell them that they've been drugged?" Shiana asked disbelievingly. "What could be simpler?" Tebam shrugged.

"I dunno, I say we just forget about it. One old man gets frisky with his lady friend, as far as I'm concerned we're doing him a favor."

"It could have been her father!" Shiana shrieked in disgust. Maece buried his head in his hands anew. He should have been watching Tebam, he'd already made his intentions perfectly clear. In a way, this was really all his fault. This way was not nearly as significant as the way it was all Tebam's fault, but it existed.

"It's not so bad, really. Didn't you once say that there's nearly a full serving caught up in the tubes of the machine at any given time? If you sold that, it wouldn't be narced." Teban pointed out. Maece placed a bucket under the orange-cherry spigot and blocked it open; then started shoving cones into an old box.

"What are you doing?" Tebam asked.

"I'm closing my cart for the night. I've got to if I'm going to find who bought the ice." He glanced over at Tebam.

"Also, you're paying me for the contaminated ice."

"No one was gonna buy that, you said so yourself!"

"I could do so much worse." he snarled. "I've still got half a mind to do things you can't even imagine."

"Bet you can't imagine them either, that's why you won't say what they are."

"Shut up, you giant twat." Shiana said slowly. "We all understand you've got the morals of a flea with none of the charm. You don't have to go on proving it."

"We've got to check." Maece said suddenly, removing his apron and throwing it over his cart.

“What?” asked Tebam.

“Someone out there has gotten narced up and they don’t know about it. We need to help them.”

"We?"

"It's your bloody fault, the least you can do is help to sort it out."

"I'm in too." said Shiana. "I narrowly avoided this, best thing I can do is help some other girl not get accosted."

"Thank you, Shiana." said Maece.

"Yes, thanks." agreed Tebam. "Now, I think you and me ought to start looking towards where the dancing was-"

"What makes you think that I'm ever going to go anywhere with you?!" Shiana spat, moving away from him. "Once we've found these poor sods I'm going to pretend that you're dead and if you dare to try and alter my fantasy, I'll make it come true!"

"You're not going with Maece, then?" he exclaimed pathetically.

"What's the sense in that?" Shiana asked. "We'll cover more ground if we all split up." She turned away and started out to look for a strange older man sharing an ice cream with a pretty young lady. Tebam kicked the ground sheepishly and started off in another direction. He had no great hopes of finding the effected people but he did have some hopes for not having those frigid judgmental bints screaming abuse at him in the middle of the street.

 

Maece started pushing his cart along, as he could hardly leave it unattended. With that jangling ruckus and the clumsy cart moving across crowded streets, he had the least chance of finding the drugged customers of any of them. But he had the most reason to try.

"Only the orange-cherry ice." Maece repeated to himself. "Only sold one or two of those tonight. What could possibly have happened?"

 

 

 

Meanwhile in the alley, what could have possibly happened was in fact still happening.

Despite his initial confusion, the blond Doctor became suddenly fascinated by the idea of snogging and went along with it. He had tried nearly everything else at least once, it was high time he got around to experimenting with this. Moreover, it was an extremely gratifying assortment of sensations, largely tactile. The mouth was actually quite secondary to the remainder of the act. Although, tasting the echo of the ice inside of her mouth was an interesting bonus. Sort of a payback for hogging it in the first place. However, he wasn’t sure whether that weird smacking noise was supposed to be enjoyed or politely ignored.

Among the more noticeable aspects of the action, there was the fact the young lady was attempting to climb him like a tree. He had to lean against the platform he noticed earlier to keep from being totally overbalanced, but nonetheless he was doing his best to aid her ascent by hoisting her into place. Given his grip he couldn't help but be reminded of the urge to grab her face while she was eating ice cream, but this time he acted on it. Although, to be fair, that was a different set of cheeks.

 

Peri squeaked, as people who have just had their bum squeezed are wont to do, and lifted her face slightly. She adjusted position and reapplied herself to the task of covering his face in saliva, this time starting at the ear and working down from there.

The fact she was gumming his neck simultaneously reminded him there was something he was going to say when his mouth was free and caused him to forget what it was. So he just started talking, hoping to remember his point by the time he finished. In the meantime, he ought to loosen his collar, the way she was nosing around it was pathetically reminiscent of a cat trying to eat its way into a paper bag because it smelt fish. Recognizing what he was doing, she took hold of his tie and undid it, nearly choking him in the process. She then moaned something that sounded remarkably like "payback", proving that she had quite lost her wits.

"Peri?" he started. She acknowledged him by way of biting him on the clavicle. Surprisingly hard, he hadn't expected that at all, much less with any force. And more surprisingly, not unpleasant. And there went his train of thought. Something about cats?

 

He turned his head down, touching his mouth to her temple on the way down. No reason not to, it certainly seemed to make her happy, and it was difficult not to be happy when one had a firm grip on a happy co-ed's bottom.

The view he was met with upon turning his head did have a distinctive aesthetic value. There was quite an expanse of cleavage there. Was that what he was going to be talking about? No, no, he didn't usually talk about cleavage. Although, in this particular position, he couldn't see why not.

"This is an angle I don't usually see them from." he mused.

"Shut up, Doctor." she moaned.

 

He got distracted again. The thing that confused him, and made it incredibly difficult to support her body weight or keep his own balance even with the aid of the ledge; was the fact she seemed unable to keep her bottom still. It actually got worse if he tried to hold it in place, because she would react to that action. Either that or she was trying to rub her pelvis against his stomach, but in this particular situation the distinction seemed monumentally unimportant. And there was something important. Something to do with talking? He'd try again.

"I am expert on everything, and everything includes breasts." he stated simply. "I've actually seen a great variety, being constantly surrounded by young women of various species; and had only intended to pay yours a compliment."

To punctuate this point, he lowered his face and started making tardis noises into her chest. In unison, both of them attempted to adjust their positions. Neither of them went for the same position and this broke an extremely delicate equilibrium that until then had held them in place.

 

Hitting the steps was actually quite painful, only made more so by the young woman landing on him, but at least that got the weight off of his arms. Maybe that's what he'd been trying to communicate. He was unable to cry out in pain, however, as for some reason this appeared to Peri as a signal to resume snogging.

 

It occurred to him that this was an inappropriate setting for their actions, but that was beside the point. No part of this scenario was appropriate, and the grimy steps of a forgotten alley seemed to be functioning perfectly well as a more exotic version of a bicycle shed. Of course, in the bike-shed scenario, he was less the young swain and more the professor about to be found with a student and get the sack. Or get into it, depending on their ability to extricate themselves from this situation.

 

Peri's thoughts, such as they were, did not follow nearly so complex a pattern. At that moment, the world had disappeared entirely, leaving only fascinating sensations which she explored without question: The bending of flesh under fingers, the taste of melted ice cream and someone else's saliva. Textures of skin and velvet. Curls, there were curls. The curls were interesting. That and the almost masturbatory effect of rubbing one pelvis against another; which was giving her a wedgie, but in a good way.

 

 

 

 

 

"What's the blasted hurry?" snapped a teenage boy in an open vest. "You're the second bloke to knock me over in the past hour!"

"Sorry, sorry." muttered Maece quickly. "I'm just looking for someone. Have you seen any foreigners? They'd be dressed funny and acting-- acting funnier than they were dressed. A young woman and an older man."

"Yeah." said the youth. "That's the lot what knocked me over. Totally self-absorbed lot, foreigners, didn't even look back at me. I half think they wanted to be alone, they was all grabbin' at each other like curs in heat." Maece's fears were confirmed. He grabbed the boy's shoulders.

 

"Did you see which way they went?!" he exclaimed.

"Hard to miss, the way they was actin'." the boy replied. "Running havok in the streets then up the scaffolding to 'ponics." He pointed to the building they'd scaled.

"More trouble than need be to get alone, if you ask me. When I get a girl, I just snog her in the street and if people don't like it they don't have to watch." He spoke with the confident assurance of a young man who's thought about this far more than it had actually happened.

 

Maece turned his head in panic. Those poor fools might have been up to each other's necks in--well, each other’s necks. He looked back at the young man.

"Look, can I get you to do me a favor?"

"Depends on what it is, guv."

"Just- just watch this cart until I get back. I'll only be a minute, I'm going up after those two. There's something they need to know."

"What, that there are propriety laws on Agoshontai?" the boy laughed. "News to me."

"Just- just watch my cart for a minute. You can eat all the ice you want while you're watching."

"Oh, thanks mate!" the young man exclaimed, and with that the ice vendor spun about and started climbing up the scaffolding as fast as he could manage. Maece reached the first landing and wheeled back to call out to the boy.

"But not the orange-cherry flavor!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I looked back on this fic, I was embarrassed by the steamy love scene in this chapter. Reuploading it, I'm embarrassed by the terrible accents the TARDIS gave the Agosontini natives. I'm pretty sure I intended "I think a storm might be rising." as an innuendo, but it rather falls flat.


	5. Distractions and Interruptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kissing comes to a roaring stop as Tebam tries to mop up the mess the narco caused.

The younger Doctor couldn't shake the feeling there was something very important he had to communicate to Peri, but every time he started to form words, his mouth was full. But she appeared to be breaking away now. He just had to remember what he was trying to say and why the texture of the brick wall was so damn fascinating. The second thought seemed slightly more important. The young woman sat up, essentially sitting in the lying man's lap. She was touching the knot in her top, surely she didn't intend to undo it?

That act of impropriety jogged the Doctor's mind. This was a public area and that was not appropriate behavior for this venue. Inappropriate behavior, that was it! That was it! Different ages, different species, and under normal circumstances not nearly this affectionate.

 

"Peri, I believe we've been drugged." He said so matter-of-factly that it gave her pause. In a moment of dangerous lucidity, Peri came to the horrific realization she'd spent the last half-hour attached at the mouth to a weird old man, plump around the middle and dressed like a circus tent. On that count, however, the coat could be removed. Peri was shocked that her mind dared provide her with such an image. Her hands dropped from her chest and she stared down into her still-heaving bosom in horror.

"Why didn't you stop me?!"

"I believe I said, 'we' didn't I?" he retorted hotly. "I may have a superior constitution, lessened to non-existent libido and remarkable willpower, but I still received a dose. And _you_ certainly didn't help!"

"Non-existent libido?" Peri asked. “We’ve been making out for the past thirty minutes and you expect me to believe you have no libido?”

“Hence the theory that we’ve been drugged! Do pay attention, Peri. And no, compared to a human, I do not." he shrugged as best as he could manage in his compromised position. The conversation was helping with lucidity, but beyond the part of him taking place in the conversation was the part of him who saw no reason to displace the young woman. "Think of the giant tortoises of your planet, Peri. Long-lived species _can't_ breed as often as short-lived ones, or we'd be awash in tortoises. And timelords live significantly longer than those do."

"You're a tortoise with a tardis?" she asked dubiously.

"Oh, do try to focus."

"I _am_ trying to focus. On something other than your neck. I'm still drugged." she said through her teeth.

"Oh, in that case; think of tortoises, by all means. Or chew on my neck some more, either way is fine."

In retrospect, he thought, back against the stones, he really should not have given her permission. The poor girl was off her tit. He tapped her on the shoulder.

"Peri. Peri. You're doing it again." With tremendous willpower, he raised his voice.

" _Perpugilliam!_ "

"Guh!" she sat up quickly, covering her mouth in disgust.

"This is quite embarrassing, actually. I started to ask you to stop about ten minutes ago and then I forgot what I was doing. I'm afraid I have very little experience with unexpected cataglottism."

"What?"

"What we we just doing, Peri." he sniffed condescendingly.

"I'm not- it's- it's like you're taking advantage of me!"

" ' _Taking advantage of you' ?!"_ he repeated in an affronted tone. "Should I remind you who has whom pinned to the ground with her legs? You _might_ remember who didn't let me get a word in!" Peri let out a pained whining noise that didn't properly contain any words.

“Had I any designs on your virtue, my dear, the matter would have been settled long ago.” The Doctor said firmly. “This isn’t meant as a slight on your virtue, of course; but merely stating a fact about my charm.” She covered her face and let out the pained whining noise again, this time in a higher pitch.

“It wasn’t me!” she whined. “It was drunk Peri!”

"Right then Peri, drunk Peri, perhaps both of you should get off?" he suggested. He then immediately blocked her decent by putting both hands on her chest.

"Of me!" he clarified, sitting up and sliding her off of his lap.

"Seeing as we seem to have some outside influence, what we ought to be doing is a bit of mind-over-matter. If we don't mind what we're doing-- no that's not it."

For her part, Peri had clambered off her friend and was currently attempting to straighten her top.

"This did not happen, this is a dream, this is my subconscious trying to tell me I need a better relationship with my father!"

"Oh, don't fret too much about it, dear girl. You were drugged, still are, actually. I imagine you simply latched onto the nearest handsome male and attempted to mate with it. It's quite understandable, actually. I'm a very attractive man." he said calmly. Peri buried her face in her hands and groaned. This was largely in order to hide her face in shame, but it had the added benefit of cutting off any visuals that might exacerbate the situation. She started groaning as the events since they'd landed sunk into the part of her brain that actually thought. Even if she could blot out the "what" of the past hour, that familiar arrogance really drove home the "who".

"I only mean you don't have the mental power I do. I've been ignoring bodily urges for hundreds of years!"

"That didn't stop you from grabbing my tits just now!"

"I was blocking."

"You squeezed!"

"Purely reflexive." he retorted. The Doctor took in the bedraggled appearance of himself and his companion, namely how his coat had been pushed off his shoulders. He removed it entirely. Peri covered her eyes and reminded herself that this action had caught the drug's attention, not hers.

"And for god's sake, cover yourself up!" the Doctor snapped, handing the offending item to her. "I'm extremely distractible in this state!"

 

 

 

 

Rose could hear the sound of his hearts against her ear. Her nostrils were full of the scent of him, like the ozone smell before a lightning strike. The Oncoming Storm. It was at the same time exhilarating and terrifically peaceful, she felt for a moment as if she could fall asleep on her feet, supported only by his arms and chest. She thought then that she didn't want this to end or change, not a mote, then he raised a hand to her chin.

Her face tilted up under his guidance, filling her vision with his face. That expression, that same expression he had worn when she walked out to him; that, at least in that moment, she was the most important part of the universe. It wasn't a question of moments to Rose. She adored him and she would continue to do so as long as she existed.

She pushed up to him and he bent down to her, slowly closing the gap until their faces were finally in contact. He'd caught her lower lip between both of his and froze there, unmoving, unbreathing, feeling as if the world has ground to a halt around them. And it could, for all she cared. Nothing would compare to this moment. There was a swelling feeling in her chest, buoying like she was floating, or perhaps he'd simply lifted her from the ground.

The incredible wrongness, differences in age and species and everything he'd always reminded himself of when he found himself too close to her melted away. None of it mattered at all; she wasn't a human, she was Rose. His Rose. This is simply what one did when one had a Rose. The very idea of _not_ kissing her had suddenly become preposterous.

 

Then, quite suddenly, a wheezing, exhausted voice broke through the little world of stars and ozone they'd built around each other.

"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt you, but this is actually quite important. Did either of you eat some orange-cherry ice?"

Rose and the Doctor's faces broke apart, startled. The human returned to the world with a jolt, literally in that he had lifted her onto the balls of her feet. An agoshontian wearing a headband was half bent over the scaffold, wheezing.

" _Excuse me?!_ " the Doctor's voice had gone shrill in offense. "What _the hell_ is your problem?"

"The both of you have been drugged." the native wheezed, trying to catch his breath.

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked.

"He's the man we bought out ice cream from." said Rose, having a better memory for little details like people.

"My name is Maece." he said, straightening, "And I understand that you're not yourselves at the moment but you seem to have missed the important part of what I've just said. You've been drugged."

"Have we?" asked the Doctor. "And how did this happen?"

"This --idiot-- named Tebam, he-- he was trying to slip narco to a girl he fancied, and he contaminated my entire supply." he explained. "I sold some of it to you by accident."

"What's narco?" asked Rose.

"A recreational narcotic outlawed in this system in three thousand and twenty-eight-"

"It's three thousand twenty four." Maece interrupted in his confusion.

"That explains a lot." the Doctor continued. "It's a pale cream to pink water-soluble powder which tastes faintly sweet, making it ideal for slipping into someone's drink. The effects, well... what's on your planet, Rose? It's sort of a two-parts-ecstasy to one-part aphrodisiac."

Rose blanched and looked up at the Doctor, taking a step back. He himself was withdrawing, breaking the contact between them and not meeting her eyes.

"...users tend to report a fascination with tactile and olfactory sensations, a sort of disconnected feeling ...and, frankly, a general feeling of overall randiness. It started being used in the late twenty-nine fifties to induce fuge states, trances; especially with artists, you know how it is. You can't travel by ship, so you travel by chemicals and get inspired that way. It's despicable, of course, but at least they were doing to themselves."

So that was it. Rose bit her lip and stared out over the city. The lights didn't seem any less bright or beautiful, but she didn't suppose knowing she was drugged would have helped with it.

"Better than what they're doing now." Maece muttered darkly. "It's one thing to waste your own life watching the hairs on your hands grow..."

"...it got worse in the three thousand teens. Use skyrocketed, but it wasn't the artists and the narc-heads anyone. People, blokes mostly, started slipping it into drinks and takin' advantage of the unknowing users. You know, takin' them home and, uh-"

"Teach the young ladies why you don’t take drinks from strangers.”

“Now, we say ‘ladies’, but narco could really be used in any combination.” The Doctor argued evenhandedly. "And was. Blokes on ladies, ladies on blokes, ladies on ladies, blokes on blokes… The more people used it on each other, the more was imported, the wider the market. Then overdoses stopped being a rare event by knowing users who thought they could handle it. They started happening nearly every week."

"What happened to the overdoses?" Rose asked warily.

"It's not right for a lady to hear-" Maece started.

"If I've had it, I want to know what I'm watchin' for!"

The Doctor rubbed the lower half of his face warily, then started again.

"It's all in bloodflow, innit? If you're lucky, you just hemorrhage and die there, too happy to get any medical care. Even if someone else got you to a hospital, it'd be too late for a detox. And the worst part is they're lying there, sometimes bleeding out of their noses and eye sockets and they just don't care. You'd see people in front of mirrors watching the blood roll down their face and being utterly fascinated. ...and when the bleeding clotted up, some folks would just cut themselves up again to see it some more." He exhaled slowly. "It's disgusting."

If being told they were drugged killed the mood, the Doctor's description of an overdose fired a round into it to make sure it was really dead, butchered it, fried it, and sold it on foam trays next to chips.

 

Rose covered her mouth and turned away. Maybe he'd think she just felt sick. She did feel sick, there was no doubt of that, but it wasn't the image of bleeding overdoses; or at least not just that. Maybe it was the transition in her mind so quickly from that beautiful, perfect, and apparently fake, moment to the image of innocent girls bleeding out of their eyes while the blokes who’d drugged them just left them to die, having finished with them.

But everything that had happened on this planet, on this rooftop; none of it mattered. None of it was real. It never would have happened if they weren't drugged. “That time we landed on Agoshotani” had turned from the moment she was ready to admit she loved him to his face to one more case file in the history of a drug she’d never heard of before that night. She should have known it from the beginning. He was timeless, powerful, wonderful. And he wasn’t for some stupid little girl like her.

The Doctor stared after where his companion had turned away. It was agony to see her this way; worse because the part he had played in it. Poor Rose had gotten narced up and done such stupid, stupid things. And so had he. And he let her be stupid, which was worse. Rose had gotten into real danger, and he hadn’t stopped her. He didn’t protect her. He’d promised to keep her safe then let her get close to him. That was the least safe place to be.

Safe? She was mad on narco and kissing strange old men. It was the principle vice of this planet, he ought to have been guarding them against it. He remembered something about encountering this drug the last time he visited Agoshotini, but the details were vague. Most of his six hundreds were a little vague, he’d been having a mid-lives crisis at the time and he wasn’t always proud of what he _did_ remember. Not quite as embarrassing as that time he’d landed in America by mistake, but it didn’t need to be. But what he did remember about Agoshotini and narco did support what Maece had told them.

All of this paled in comparison to what the facts implied. She hadn’t come to him despite everything she knew was wrong, there were chemicals beating down the inside of her head and forced her to act that way. She didn't love him back. At least not the way that he loved her. They would have to just get off this rooftop and pretend none of this had happened. He told himself that this was alright, maybe even better. He was nine hundred and six and he had no business kissing teenage girls even if they were sober.

 

He turned his eyes back to Maece.

"So, in short, what you're saying is that we've been given a date-rape drug?" the Doctor asked incredulously.

"I just have one question, Maece." said the Doctor, "You're a food vendor, right? Your entire livelihood is in that cart. And yet you've just climbed up, dunno, six stories and left it at the bottom?"

"Yeah, I suppose so. And?"

"Why did you do that?" he asked. Maece looked at him curiously.

"Because you're drugged. I had to tell you." he said. His face was that of a man asked if stones fell up or down.

"But we're strangers."

"You have a right to know what's happened to you." he said slowly. This man was confusing him. Why was he asking such obvious questions? Was that an effect of the narco?

The Doctor broke into a grin.

"Didn't I tell you this planet was brilliant, Rose?" he grinned. " 'What a world, that has such people in it!' " He took a step forward and clapped Maece on the shoulder brightly. This confirmed to the native that the traveler was under the influence of the drug.

“Right.” Maece said slowly. “You lot will want to get to a hospital and have a detox. I don’t think you’re overdosing, you are acting lucid enough-“

“No, happy, randy, cuddly and thinking the world’s fascinating, that’s us. We’ve been dosed.” The Doctor grumbled. “I’m a doctor, I know how to deal with a dose of narco… frankly, I should have noticed the effect sooner.”

“You’ve been drugged, what do you expect? If people noticed there was something off about their behavior while they were pissed, they wouldn’t be pissed at all, would they? If you think you can sort yourselves out, I’ve got to find Shiana, she’s still out looking for you. And you can guess the kind of people who are out on nights like this.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow curiously, then suddenly broke into a grin.

“Maece Indoku!” the Doctor exclaimed. “That’s how I know your name!”

“Huh?” Rose asked.

"Maece and Shiana Indoku." the Doctor mused to himself. "Led the campaign on the banning of narco on Agoshotinai in three thousand and twenty eight and stopped its import into the Tossi system."

"I'm-- what-- Shiana-- we're not related. Her last name is Letsi. Wait, when did I tell you my last name?"

"Sorry, sorry, forget I said anything." he shrugged, throwing his hands in the air. "I _am_ on drugs, remember!"

“Right. Well, if you’re a doctor… I guess you’ll handle that. If you’re sure you’re alright..?” His gaze shifted to the young woman, who was still hugging her arms and staring over the cityscape.

“Someone should stop this whole thing, its wretched.” Rose spat, looking over the buildings. “A world like this, so peaceful, so friendly, it shouldn’t have a blot like narco on it.” The Doctor looked at his companion. Agosontini was a bright, lively world. Maybe that was why he’d wanted to bring Rose. It reminded him of her. Unless that was the narco talking.

“I’m so sorry, miss.” Maece murmured. “Please believe me. I’m so, so sorry this happened to you.”

“Get back to your cart, Maece.” Said the Doctor, stepping forward. He wanted to put an arm around Rose and comfort her, but knew that must have just been the narco. Even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be right to tempt her drug-addled body back into his arms. All he could help with was the ice vendor. “Get back to your cart and toss out the drug. The damage on us has been done, but there’s still more that could happen to other people.”

Maece nodded and turned around. He made it to the scaffolding, then stopped. He didn’t turn back to the travelers, but he spoke with absolute conviction.

"You're right, though." said Maece. "Someone does need to put a stop to this.”

"Ah, that's the trouble though, innit?" The Doctor chirped. "If everyone says someone ought to do something, no one ever does anything."

A breeze came up over the rooftops, lifting the hair and tail ends of his headband from his sweaty neck. Maece looked intently, almost protectively over the rooftops of his planet and the raucous festival below. Looking at the intense expression he wore, that of a man reaching a decision in his head; Rose couldn’t help but be reminded of the Doctor.

“Not tonight.” Maece said at length. “Tonight, someone will do something.” And with that, the young man disappeared down the scaffolding.

 

For a moment, neither of the travelers spoke or looked at each other. Then the human looked up and smiled at her favorite alien.

"...so Doctor, him and Shiana?" Rose smirked. "End up saving the planet from nasty drugs and sharin' a last name?"

"Ye-p." he smiled. "Always glad when someone gets the girl. Normally, I mean."

"Right." She agreed. She fiddled with the ends of her hair, feeling tremendously awkward. A new silence descended, not the comfortable silence they had dozed in before but an awkward silence where both of them wondered just how drunk they really were.

“Let’s get back to the Tardis.” The Doctor said at length. “So long as we keep our heads up, and don’t start bleeding of course, the best thing for us would be to sleep this off.”

“Right.” Rose muttered again. The Doctor started to take her hand again, but stopped. It still felt natural to want to hold her; but that had to be the drug. He closed his eyes and sighed. He couldn’t just give into foreign impulses, no matter how pure they felt. The Doctor started down the scaffolding, assuming she would follow.

 

 

Down on the bottom level, Maece sighed and leaned against a wall, sliding down it in exhaustion. He had done all he could for the foreign couple. It wasn’t enough, not nearly. And they hadn’t even suffered half as much as most people affected by narco. He had done a lot of running around that night, and he only had more running around to do. He might get a few supporters straightaway, from the families of those who had suffered from the drug, recovering addicts, perhaps even merchants whose business suffered from the competition. The thought made him squeamish, but he knew if he could get them they would be the strongest allies in this fight. They would compare notes and finally have facts on what narco’s affects were. And once they had facts, then the real work would begin. He would have to make people care, and that’s something he knew they wouldn’t want to do.

A thought suddenly occurred to him from a train of thought he’d long abandoned. He'd definitely sold an orange-cherry cone that night, he knew he’d sold those two a cone to split, and orange-cherry was the contaminated flavor. But he had the strangest feeling the couple he'd just talked to had gotten peach. Perhaps he was just being confused because they were the same color. No, no, when he described the effects of narco to them, they'd recognized it in their behavior. It was definitely affecting them. Perhaps he was remembering wrong. Still, he ought to dump out the peach as well, just to be on the safe side.

It was a start.


	6. Bandersnatches and Pillows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tebam finds the younger Doctor and explains the situation to him. The Doctor momentarily loses his grip on his mental stability. Everyone retires to their respective Tardisi.

“ _Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the jubjub bird and shun the furbious bandersnatch!”_

The Doctor had been reciting “Jabberwocky” for several minutes now. He had started to do it to keep himself focused, or at least force him to think about something other than his intoxicated state and what actions it pressed him to do. It was getting Peri to think about other things as well, namely how eerie it was to hear him recite poetry; which was good because until that point Sober Peri had disappeared, apparently too embarrassed to be seen with the Doctor and Drunk Peri. More than once he had started reciting and ended in a violent episode; the first and most memorable time this had happened, his violence was directed towards her. The memory of this, his hands around her neck, was far more sobering than any other attempt she had made to ignore her condition. Sadly, somehow the memories of the first of these episodes and earlier that evening had mixing together in her head; a snatch of one and then the other all jumbled together.

Screaming, muttering, that fervent voice he had when he was focused. Being pinned against the ground, his weight upon her. Hands on her arms, on her neck, her chest; too many colors and that general feeling of confusion he had about him. She couldn’t breathe; she was being choked, kissed, thrown against the ground. It was all the same and it horrified and fascinated her.  

"… _then rested he by the tum-tum tree and stood a while in thought.”_

As he recited on, talking of momraths and boregroves, she thought how in other situations, he might be spewing out nonsense words, or words that sounded like nonsense but were being used to describe something dangerous, something she’d never thought of before once in her life, but something he’d need to save her from before the day was out. His voice kept growing more intense, more excited, like his manic state had gotten caught up on the poem rather than her.

“ _One-two, one-two and through and through! The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead and with his head he came gallumping back._ ”

Suddenly he spun in place, grinning and springing back towards her in the crowd. He caught Peri around the waist and lifted her up, twirling her around in the air. Her hands dropped from the lapels of the coat to steady herself on his shoulders, which allowed the patchwork jacket to flare impressively around them. It brought to mind both a father with his child and a man with his lover. The comparison was uncomfortable, but all she could think of was how in another time and place she would have dismissed this as his normal eccentricity.

“ ‘ _And you have slain the Jabberwock? Come to, my beamish boy! Oh frabjus day! Callu! Callay!’ he chortled in his joy._ ”

He was old and mad and wretched, he’d lost what little sense he’d had in the first place. Every part of what had happened that night disgusted her, particularly this child-bride affection he’d just greeted her with. She caught his face in her hands and kissed it. So much for good sense.

 

Tebam stared at the pair kissing in the street. She wore a strange patchwork coat around her shoulders, he a violently patterned vest. Due largely to the difference in their heights, she’d gripped his waist with her knees; which only served to make her have to bend down to kiss him rather than he having to bend down to kiss her. An older man and a younger woman, foreigners dressed strangely and acting stranger. Well, they certainly fit the description. Sadly, he wasn’t quite sure how to proceed; only that he didn’t care to. They looked fairly happy at the moment, and it really wasn’t his business how they spent their night. Except it was, because the way they’d spent their night was probably due to the narco he’d slipped in the ice.

“What the devil are you staring at?” demanded the man. “Haven’t you seen people with a blatant disregard for good taste before?” He was still holding the young woman up in the air, and she looked somewhat surprised to be there.

“Oh god, I’ve got the coat…”

“Not the coat, Peri. This _is_ a public area.” The man scoffed, still not setting her down. Tebam touched his face to cover a smile. This was funnier than it was anything else. Maece had said it was a strange old man with a pretty young woman, but he hadn’t quite pictured this.

“I’m guessing the two of you bought some ice?” Tebam asked, trying not to smile. The young woman slid down her friend and stared at the Agoshontinian. The man stared at him as well, although his expression was more calculating than shocked.

“Orange-cherry?” the blond man asked.

“Doctor… it was the ice cream.” She gasped, almost whispering. “There was something in the ice cream.”

“No really, Peri, do you reckon?” he retorted sarcastically. Tebam’s lips curled. He could figure out what all of this was. This old bloodletter was in the middle of some kind of mid-life crisis, picking up young women and weird habits. And of course, dressing like _that._ Experimenting with drugs only seemed like a natural step to Tebam. And anyway, they seemed to be dealing with the news well. At least as well as could be expected.

"This exactly what everyone always told me would happen if I hung around strange old men..." Peri moaned, burying her face in her hands and turning away.

"Oh? Did people warn you about this behavior often? And did they mention the alien planet?"

“Ah, I thought you was foreign!” Maece crowed, clapping his hands together. “Offworlders, always the same! Come for the summer festival and can’t handle the heat.”

“The heat would not appear to be the problem.” The Doctor said warily. “Unless of course, ‘heat’ is a euphemism particular to this planet.”

“This always happens when you travel, doesn’t it?” Maece laughed, trying to play this off as light as possible. “You lose your bags, get wrong change and a good story, wind up on a roof with a dancing girl and a goat, be in the wrong place at the right time and accidently drink half a jig of narco.”

“Narco?!” The Doctor snapped, rounding on Tebam. “I’ve been given narco?!”

The Doctor didn't feel the need to explain what narco was to Peri, as she'd gotten most of it. She knew more about its effects than anyone else in the vicinity.

“You wasn’t _given_ narco as such…” Tebam said warily. “Not so much as… you happened upon a misplaced snootful.”

“One does not simply _happen_ _upon_ a snootful of a sensory-altering aphrodisiac; particularly not hidden in a confection served to, among other people, _children._ ” The Doctor said with a sort of evenness in his tone that terrified those who were still around to hear it. Peri drew back, gripping her lip and staring unblinkingly at the Doctor with a mixture of terror and fascination. He hadn’t noticed, as he was still staring coldly at Tebam.

“And who, may I ask, are you?”

“My name isn’t important.” replied Tebam.

“Please do not play at being mysterious because it makes you feel important; I am far better at it than you will ever be. I’ve actually met with dangerous people and they’ve often come out the worse for it. I can see you are some petty little crook without a modicum of sense, not even important in the terms of his own planet, probably not even within his own town, sadly that isn’t quite the question I asked.

I’m in no mood to puff up some small-time sleezemonger by letting him oppose me. I have saved worlds, galaxies upon occasion and it offends me enough that I have to stooped to deal with you at all; but you have unfortunately made my life difficult _tonight_ , and so _tonight_ I have to address you. Now tell me what I am to address you as or I will simply call you ‘idiot’.”

“Tebam.” He answered automatically, not so much impressed by the man’s claims but startled that he had the cognizance to make a speech at all.

“Well now, Mr. Tebam; we come to the crux of the matter.” The Doctor drew himself up to his full height and fixed a particularly icy stare on Tebam.

“How.” He snarled, drawing close to the native, “Did. This. Happen?” Tebam took a few steps back and laughed nervously.

“The way I see it, bloodletter, I did you a favor.” Tebam scoffed. “Look at her, do you think a nutter like you could get a girl like that on a normal day?”

“And what’s wrong with me?” the Doctor asked, affronted.

“Does how I feel about making out with an old man come into this?” asked Peri suddenly.

“Evidently not.” The Doctor answered. “And I do wish you’d stop calling me old, the parts you were involved with have been much older in the past.”

“Oh, that’s a very comforting thought!” Peri scoffed. “ ‘He looks forty, but he’s really four hundred!’ ”

“Nine hundred and eighty-seven.” He corrected idly. He then turned back to her, “Wait, do you think I look forty? I’ll admit this face has a certain distinguished look to it…”

Tebam looked between the bickering couple. At first he thought they were just off-worlders, but now they were talking nonsense. The combination of narco and ice must have affected their reaction, or these two were mad to begin with.

“…strange old men, always warned me about strange old men…”

"I keep telling you, even in this intoxicated state I have made a valiant effort against _your_ advances." the Doctor retorted. "If that isn't evidence enough that I had no grand design to drug you senseless and have my wicked way with you, I don't think you're convincible."

"You're cute when you use big words."

"I'm going to disregard that, despite its truth, as another effect of your intoxication. Nevertheless; thank you." The serious tone of that statement was somewhat ruined by him suddenly grinning at her.

"And there's plenty more where that came from.” The native was growing positive that they were mad to begin with.

“Well, that’s the news I had for you, so I’ll just be on my way—“ said Tebam, turning off into the crowd. That’s when he noticed the crowd had thinned around them. Some people were glancing vaguely at them but no one looked directly at the oncoming trouble. It was remarkable how in such a populated area, you could have a fight in a crowded street and no one would see it. You could ask anyone, they weren’t there, they didn’t see it, they couldn’t identify the men involved. They didn’t want any trouble, not a single Agoshontinian. This included Tebam, but sadly, the Doctor was as foreign as they came.

“I’m terribly sorry, did I say I was finished with you?” he asked, gripping Tebam by the shoulder.

“Unhand me, bloodletter!” he snarled, whipping around and slapping the Doctor’s hand away.

“You never answered my question!” the Doctor snapped. “Why was there narco in my ice?!”

“I never thought no one was gonna get any of the ice unless I gave it to them myself. I happen to have this friend who needed a little kick in her inhibitions… you know, as a joke…”

“A joke?” Peri asked dubiously.

“Like most vices, narco is prized quite highly. It seems a rather expensive choice for a joke.” the Doctor frowned, arching his eyebrows. “For that matter, contaminating a vendor’s entire supply is a rather scattergun approach to… what is it you said you were going to do? Buy your victim an ice cream and enjoy the side effects?”

“Don’t call her my ‘victim’, she’s practically my girl.” Tebam snapped. “Leastways, she would have been if you lot didn’t soss things up.”

“Would you care to elaborate?” the Doctor asked tersely.

“Well, take your ladyfriend here.” Tebam answered. “Surely you keep her around for her personality, I don’t think.” Peri gaped at the native.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re getting at.” The timelord answered icily. His eyebrow was cocked in such a way that suggested he certainly did have some idea of what Tebam was getting at, but it was more important to make a show of not thinking along the same lines as the “sleezemonger”.

“I’m sure you know how it is…” Tebam gestured at Peri.

“I’m sure I don’t!” the Doctor retorted sharply.

“You’re telling us that you were trying to get ‘your girl’ drunk and horny as a joke?” Peri asked dubiously. “And we just ‘accidently’ got it instead?”

“You were trying to drug a woman and have your way with her.” The Doctor said flatly. “How _dare_ you speak to me about poor taste?”

“Don’t see how it’s any of your business, bloodletter.” Tebam snapped.

“You yourself made it my business the moment you drugged my ice!” he snapped. His head snapped down violently, fixing his gaze on the smaller man. The fury in his voice contrasted sharply with the grin he wore, leaving Tebam with the uncomfortable feeling the contents of his stomach had suddenly turned to ice. What was that thing his mother had said? “Never taunt a madman”?

"I have so little senses on the best of days... and you have relieved me of them." the Doctor grinned, a dangerous shake at the edges of his voice.

“I did nothing to you!” Tebam shouted, trying to use anger in place of courage. “I was just tryin’ to get the pole out of Shiana’s arse, or the coin out from between her knees, I can’t be bothered with what happened to you.”

“If you are attempting to remove any qualms I may have about seeking retribution against you, I must say you’re doing a remarkable job of it.”

“You don’t want to try it, Bloodletter.” Tebam snarled.

“I don’t know, thanks to the narco you’ve so _generously_ provided, I want to try all sorts of things I’ve never done before.” The Doctor stepped forward, grinning. “Of course, I _won’t_ , being civilized, although I would doubt you would know much about that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why, a lady is present.” He gestured to Peri. “Even if I were to be so barbaric, I certainly wouldn’t do it in front of Peri. Of course, I don’t suppose I should expect you to know anything about either civilized behavior or deportment in the presence of women.”

That was enough condescension from this drunken foreigner. Maece had been his usual stuck-up, meddling self; he’d wasted a full jig of good narco; Shiana had sworn never to look at him again, threatened to kill him, really. And now, some sauced foreign bloodletter was lecturing him on deportment. Tebam was having a hell of a night and he wasn’t going to take any more of it. He pulled back and punched up at the foreigner’s face, making him reel back into his friend.

Peri stumbled as she attempted to keep the Doctor from falling over, likely taking her with him. There was a wild moment where his feet sought purchase in the dust and the drunk man tried to keep his balance.

The Doctor sharply looked up at the man who had just struck him. In the fragile, drugged state the blow had been enough to bloody his nose; and now a thin, orange-red line ran from his nostril to his chin, broken only by a manic grin.

"Violence?!" he laughed. "First coercion, then narcotics, and now violence. I don't think I care for you at all, Mr. Tebam."

He drew himself up to his full height, chuckling quietly to himself. His eyes were wide and glassy, his head twitching ever so slightly.

Peri blanched. She’d seen this before, she was scared of it happening again from the moment he’d started reciting Jabberwocky. When he started talking in verse, it was not long before he had an episode. That damn Tebam just had to go and set him off. There were really only two things to do in that circumstance: try to calm him or at least make him aware of himself, or protect herself by staying clear of him.

“ _’Twas brillig,_ ” the Doctor whispered, grinning, _“…and the slithy toves did burm and gimble in the wathe…_ ”

Tebam stumbled backwards, afraid of breaking eye contact; as you would with a wild animal.

“.. _all mimzy were the boregroves and the momraths outgrave…_ ” His voice was soft, and somehow that made the anger in it all the more terrifying. Or perhaps it was just the blood. Too suddenly to block, the Doctor leapt forward and caught Tebam by the vest.

“ _Beware the jabberwock, my son!_ ” Tebam was thrown forward onto the ground and into the Doctor’s foot. “ _The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”_

The red-spatted boot scooped up into Tebam’s solar plexius.

“ _Beware the jubjub bird and shun the furbious bandersnatch!”_ The same foot slammed down on his shoulder as quickly as it rose. Tebam tried to get his hands under him and push himself off the ground, but the Doctor kicked his arms out from under him, and the Agoshontinian fell heavily on his face.

“Doctor, stop!” Peri begged. Assuming that with his pet girl shouting at him, the Doctor would be distracted, Tebam launched himself at the Doctor’s legs. The pair fell to the ground, the heavier man tumbling heels over head onto Tebam’s sprawled form. The native grunted with the impact, then rolled, trying to get out from under the Doctor.

“ _He took his vorpal sword in hand, longtime the maxisome foe he sought.”_

He continued reciting as if his mouth was completely unattached to the rest of his body and unaware of what it was doing. The only hint was that hissing, quiet half-laughter that the words came out in. His voice kept a steady beat and his body followed, attempting to jab and push his opponent back to the ground. It startled Tebam, largely because the blood pouring out of the Doctor’s nose suggested he had overdosed on the narco, or at least suffered a moderately serious injury, but he wasn’t acting as if either were the case.

_“Then rested he by the tum-tum tree and stood a while in thought.”_

It terrified Peri, however, as she had seen him in this state before. She wasn’t sure how to snap him out of it, or what would happen to him if she did. Tebam looked even more eager to hurt the Doctor than the Doctor was to do the same, and when his episode ended she was quite aware his distaste for violence would resurface. It was noble and she admired it, but it wasn’t the most useful of his traits when a snarling criminal was attempting to beat him into immobility.

“ _And while in uffish thought he stood, the loathesome beast, it came!”_

Rolling in the dust inelegantly, the Doctor finally forced Tebam to the ground by kneeling on his chest and gripping him roughly by the neck. Tebam reached up and clawed at the other’s face, gasping and snarling like an animal. His fingers raked the alien’s face and left pale welts that faded quickly into his flushed complexion and smeared the blood across his face.

“ _It trundled through the tugly wood and burbled as it came. One-two, one-two! And through and through! The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!”_

On beat with his quiet chanting, the Doctor lifted the man’s head by the neck and slammed it against the dusty ground. Tebam’s hands still wove before him, but he’d stopped making contact with the Doctor, as if he had misplaced his opponent. In shock, Peri realized the native’s tanned neck was growing pale and faintly lavender beneath the Doctor’s grip.

“Stop it, you’ll kill him!” she screamed, her voice a high-pitched wail. Still recoiling with her upper body, Peri forced herself forward and grabbed him around the chest, trying to pull him off Tebam. At length, the Doctor rose from his knees and stumbled backwards several paces, never straightening his torso until both he and his companion struck a wall and crumpled down it. The native dropped his hands and lay still, focusing his remaining consciousness on the act of breathing. The once-crowded street was now almost deserted and eerily silent.

 

For a moment, the travelers lay still, having landed in a position with the same level of dignity they had maintained the entire night. With her legs and arms wrapped around the Doctor’s torso, Peri’s narced mind went straight back to the alley they had spent most of the evening in; but that was a significant improvement over manslaughter. She allowed her body to go limp against his, dropping her face on his shoulder. In either affection or exhaustion, he tilted his own head to rest against hers.

_“ ‘And you have slain the jabberwock?’ ”_ the Doctor muttered vaguely, sounding highly disoriented.

“Yes! Yes, Doctor, the jabberwock is dead, it’s all right now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Peri.” the Doctor said evenly. “There’s no such thing as a jabberwock. It’s just a poem.” She raised her head, turning to look at him as best she could.

“Doctor, are you alright now?” she asked with a hopeful laugh. He had responded lucidly enough. Maybe it was all over. He cocked his head and grinned at her, and his face answered her question. Not only was he still having an episode, but the effects of the drug had not worn off. Exacerbating this was the fact that, for all her terror, Peri had gotten hold of him and she was fending off the narco’s effects even worse than he was. There was a vague awareness that the appropriate behavior around a madman was to not cuddle against him and slide her hands under his waistcoat, but this thought did not translate to action.

Expression still frozen in the bloody grin, his eyes fixed on a distant point only he could see. His form remained limp, propped against the wall and Peri.

“I can never finish the poem.” The Doctor said softly, looking past his companion. “The last stanza is the same as the first and then I start all over… it never ends, Peri. Why doesn’t it end?” He jerked away, turning in place on his knees.

“Why doesn’t it end, Peri?!” he snarled. “I think it’s over and then it starts all over again, beating, pounding, all fresh and when I think I can put it out of my head, when I think I can control it, everything starts anew and you’re there and you’re only making it worse!”

The Doctor gripped her by the arms and pulled her to her feet, pinning her body against the wall with his own. Arching his back, he lowered his mouth to her ear as if to speak, but no words came. His hands tightened on her arms the same way they had on Maece’s neck.

"--Doctor-- you're hurting me--"

"Did you fight the drug at all?" he whispered vehemently. "Did you try or did you just trust that I could keep my promise? That I wouldn't hurt you?"

“I-I-“ she gasped.

"Did you trust me? Look at me! What kind of fool would trust me?!" he was shouting now, although the end of each sentence ended with a little aborted noise that was very nearly a sob. Pity joined the fear and lust and pure confusion sloshing from side to side in her mind, Peri almost wished that her short breath would make her lose consciousness so that she wouldn’t have to feel anything at all.

The worst part was, she did trust him. She’d trusted him not to hurt her when he promised not to, despite the fact he already had. Even now, that manic violence turned against her, she still trusted him. She trusted that he didn’t mean it, that he wasn’t himself when he had an episode and that he couldn’t be held accountable for his actions. Those episodes wouldn’t even have been triggered if she didn’t worry him so much. It wasn’t his fault he had gone insane, if anyone’s it was hers. He’d fallen trying to protect her and woke up as… as this. It was her responsibility to look after him. Moreover, she had trusted herself to watch over him in his moments of madness, to protect him the way that the lucid Doctor protected her. This very situation was a sign that both of those trusts had been misplaced. Even in that knowledge, she could only doubt herself.

"Why didn’t you fight it, Peri?! Why do I always have to be the one to fight?" he snarled in her ear. "Why do you force me to instill morality?! Don't you know how hard it is for me? Don't you all know that?!" His voice was pleading now, still a scream but more in pain than anger.

"I can be weak, you know! I can surrender too!" To illustrate the point, he kissed her. Hard, more like he was trying to force-feed her his teeth than any sign of affection. There was blood in his mouth, and the coppery taste was a jarring, nightmarish change after the sweet ice she’d tasted last time. There was something else in there with the copper, something Peri's didn't recognize, something that didn't taste like when she put her hand to her mouth if she cut her finger, it didn't taste like human blood. There was something cloying to it, like eating corn syrup straight and it stuck to the roof of her mouth. Terror and lust fought for dominance in Peri’s mind; which only scared her more.

That cold, hard terror in her chest welled as if it would burst, her feet scraping at the ground beneath her. It was all the same, all over again; Peri and the monster she’d turned a good man into clawing pointlessly at each other. Maybe today they were shouting, or striking out or fighting or kissing but it always was the same, wasn’t it?

She was terrified but all the same the drug insisted she kiss him back.

Then, all at once, it ended. He broke away and slumped to the ground, clutching at his own throat as if he was suffocating. Peri slipped down the wall, clinging to it with all the power she possessed. The Doctor slumped forward onto his face as if he’d just noticed that gravity existed on this planet and wanted to make up for lost time. He lay still for several moments, looking for all the world like drunk asleep in a ditch or a badly dressed corpse. Then, at length, he spoke.

“Peri, there are several questions I would like answered.” He said in a surprisingly even tone. “First and foremost, why are we lying indecorously on the ground, secondly, on what planet’s ground are we lying on, and finally, where is my jacket?”

“Doctor, we’re still on Ago- Agoshon…”

“Agoshontini? In the Tossi system?” He sat up quickly. “Have we been here long?” The Doctor looked around and took a quick assessment of the situation. Both of them were on the ground. Peri had his coat. His nose was bleeding, his clothes were dusty, he felt rather lightheaded, mixed with a feeling he couldn’t quite recognize but would promptly ignore, and there was a bite mark on his clavicle. Evidently, he had been in some sort of tousle. They were clearly in a street on Agoshontini in the three thousand twenties, but it was abandoned except for a roughed-up looking man in a torn vest who bolted when the Doctor turned to him. Well, bolted as best as he was able in his condition, which was only just good enough to run away.

“I had an episode, didn’t I?” the Doctor asked. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He reached forward either to stroke her hair soothingly or test to see if she’d jerk away. She kept enough of her lucidly to only close her eyes when he touched her cheek. He drew his hand away, satisfied.

            “…you don’t remember anything that happened on this planet?” she asked disbelievingly.

            “I can’t even remember landing.” he answered, pulling a handkerchief out of the pocket of his waistcoat. The Doctor dabbed at his nosebleed delicately. “I do feel a bit strange. Still! Nothing to be done for it. Come Peri, let’s be off. I’ll buy you an ice cream.”

            “No!” she shouted. He turned back to his companion, startled.

            “No, no.” Peri insisted. “I have a headache, let’s just go back to the tardis.”

 

 

 

Shiana paused in her racing through the streets. There was a young man leading against the side of a cart, eating an ice and looking disreputable.

"That cart belongs to Maece the ice vendor." she said, "What are you doing with it?"

"Keep your hair on, girl!" the boy retorted. "That bloke wit' a bandana had me watch this cart while he ran up to the roofs. Muttered something about 'finding them'. Mental, everyone I meet tonight is mental."

"What flavor is that? Tell me you haven't had orange-cherry! Dear lord, you're barely more than a boy, tell me you haven't had any of the orange-cherry."

"Nah, it's raspberry." he said idly. "See? It's pink. The orange-cherry bin's empty. No shame there, it's rubbish."

 

 

 

On the same ship, moored on the same planet, on the same night, but in different points in the ship’s history, two human women buried their faces into their beds, biting the pillows to keep from crying out and trying not to think about the ship’s pilot.

Rose knew she shouldn’t cry, if she let herself the Doctor would hear her. If he heard her, he’d want to help her; and she didn’t want his help right now. She didn’t want to think about him, how close she’d been to him, how in that moment she’d lost her doubt and gave in. She wasn’t sure if he loved her back or not, but she was sure that if he did, he wouldn’t show it like that. It was one thing to believe that it wasn’t lack of affection on his part that kept them from changing their relationship to an openly romantic one. It was another to have proof that if it did develop in that direction, it would surpass her fantasies.

Peri simply had a lot of frustration and most of a dose of narco to work out of her system. She recognized the simplest and fastest way to relieve the tension, but she wanted this to have as little to do with her mad friend as possible; and that meant not thinking about the past evening as she proceeded.

For the most part, she succeeded.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first multi-chapter Doctor Who fic I ever wrote. It was originally posted to Deviant Art in 2012. I am neither ashamed nor proud of myself for writing what I have since termed "The Ice Cream Fic", but I cannot deny that it is something that I did.


End file.
